The incident happened on the evening of November 4, but it reached a wide audience only this week, as the woman spoke to the media from her hospital bed. By Thursday, more than a dozen outlets were running the story.
According to reports compiled by the Daily Pioneer from PTI and other media, the woman was travelling from Borivali to Virar on the Western Railway line. The train was crowded. She boarded a compartment reserved for people with disabilities, where the accused was also travelling.
The man allegedly began touching her inappropriately. She objected and confronted him, and an argument followed. It continued after the train reached Naigaon station in Palghar district, where he allegedly pushed her.
She fell into a gap while the train was at the station. As she tried to get back onto the platform, the train began to move and her left arm was caught under its wheels, the Pioneer reported. Free Press Journal said she was pushed off a coach. News18 and Republic World described a fall between two coaches. The Hindu’s headline said she was pushed off the platform. Police have not yet released a single account of the exact sequence in the reports reviewed.
Doctors had to amputate the woman’s left arm below the elbow. She also sustained a head injury and received 16 stitches. She was taken first to a nearby hospital and was later moved to Cooper Hospital in Mumbai for further treatment.
Speaking to NDTV from the hospital, she appealed for justice and said the incident had changed her life. She also alleged that the man continued touching her inappropriately after she got off the train at Naigaon, Republic World reported. That claim comes from her account, and no police statement on it was available.
Hirmukhe allegedly left the station after the incident. Bhayandar railway police reportedly went through CCTV footage from several locations to track him down. NDTV later aired footage which it said shows a suspect running from the scene.
The Times of India reported that he has been booked for molestation and attempted murder. The specific sections of law were not available in the reports reviewed, and neither was his statement or a court date. Hirmukhe is an accused, not a convicted person, and the allegations have not been tested in court.
Several things were not answered by the reports available. They include the exact timeline between the incident and the arrest, when he was arrested, whether other passengers were in the compartment and what, if anything, they did. It is also not known whether the railway administration or the state government has responded. Republic World’s report carries a section on questions raised by the woman’s family about the investigation, but its details were not available.
Several outlets framed the case as a fresh worry about women’s safety on Mumbai’s suburban rail network, which carries millions of passengers a day. No official statement on safety measures was found at the time of writing.
